White House: Improved surveillance caught Chinese balloon

By ZEKE MILLER, LOLITA C. BALDOR and AAMER MADHANI
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials say efforts ordered by President Joe Biden to strengthen defenses against Chinese espionage helped identify last week’s spy balloon — and determine that similar flights were conducted at multiple points during the Trump administration. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday that after Biden took office, the U.S. “enhanced our surveillance of our territorial airspace, we enhanced our capacity to be able to detect things that the Trump administration was unable to detect.” Sullivan added that the U.S. was “able to go back and look at the historical patterns” to reveal “multiple instances” during the Trump administration in which Chinese surveillance balloons traversed American airspace and territory.